Toussaint's Private French Notebook

Month: December 2014

I did a post similar to this one, called “core words”, but I saw this new list and decided to quiz myself. Some believe that a language is 50% the manipulation of the top 100 words. Can you come up with the French equivalent for each word? I found a few problems and got them straightened out in my head. Exercises like these are important because a fundamental belief, word, etc. is found at the base of a learning foundation, upon which everything else is built upon. Note: many have more than one answer (i.e. because). Try to come up with as many as you can. Use a dictionary, thesaurus, whatever it takes…the only downside is that you’ll grow.

is palpated against (this one gave me problems, because to palpate is a term used in physical examinations, like when a doctor presses against organs from outside the skin. I’m not sure the French are using it this way, and what the equivalent is in English

été ravivées

been revived

étonnante

amazing

être dénués

to be lacking, stripped of, independent of

eu du mal pour

struggled to

faisant fi de la censure

ignoring censorship

fait le mieux

does best

faux

false eyelashes

ferroviaire

train

fiançailles

engagement

flou

fuzzy, vague, blurred, faint

folle

crazy (adventure is feminine, if it was masculine it would be “fou”)

forces de l’ordre

law enforcement

garder

keep

genre discrète

descrete type

grâce

thanks (many meanings)

graves soucis de santé

serious health concerns

inculper

indict

J’ai compris la leçon

I learned a lesson

Je ne poserai plus jamais nue

I will never pose nude again

jouer

to play, affect

l’amalgame

the mix (up)

l’apparition

the emergence/appearance

l’attirance

attraction

l’éclat

brilliant

l’éloignement

remoteness, distance

la bande

trailer (movie/video)

la chaîne

chain, network

la garde des sceaux

the guard of the seals, Minister of Justice

la pétillante

sparkling

la prise d’otages

taking of hostages

La séance a eu lieu à Paris

The meeting took place in Paris

la surnomme

nickname(d)

le décès

the deaths

le défilé

the parade

le fondateur

the founder

le parquet

the floor, prosecution

le plateau

platform, stage

le rapt

kidnapping

le réseau social

the social network

le rite

ritual

le signe précurseur

the precusor

le teint

skin

les élus

the elected

les nouveautés

news, new release, novelty

les téléspectateurs

TV viewers

long

feature film

maigrie

skinny

manque d’équilibre

this lack of balance

martyre

martyrdom

micro

micro-bleeding

mondialement

Internationally

obsèques

funeral

On ne parle que de ça

It’s all we talk about

ont du se soumettre

had to undergo

ont effectué

performed

ont témoigné

witnessed (témoigné = testified)

outre

besides

parvenir

achieve

pas loin

not far

pas présent

not present

perte de poids

loss of weight

plutôt

rather, quite

pommettes

checkbones

prédécesseurs

predecessors

présumé

alleged

profité

profitable, advantageous

redoutable

formidable, doubting

régimes amaigrissants

dieting

remonte (a)

dates (back)

repoussé

rejected

représailles

reprisal, retaliation

requête

request

retransmise en direct

broadcast live

réveillonner

to have a Christmas Eve party (verb, no kidding)

revendiqué

claimed

revenus sur ce drame

back on the drama

rogatoire

demand, request?

s’occuper

care/take care

sacrée

sacred

se débattre

struggle

se poser

pause

se remet

returns

se suivent

followed (they-days)

ses astuces

his tips

son fessier

her/his butt/ass

son propre pays

his own country

subi

sustained, underwent

supposé

assumed

surgi par surprise

arose by surprise

susceptibles de générer

capable of generating

suscitée

aroused

tel

such

tendance

trend

tentative d’homicide volontaire

attempted murder

tente de garder le sourire

tries to keep smiling

tout d’abord

first of all

tout récemment

recently

tracas

hassles

très amaigrie

emaciated

très peu alimentée

fed very little

un risque accru

increased risk

un suivi

monitoring, following

une habituée

regular

une porte latéral

side door

une séance photo

photo shoot

verront

they will see

viennent d’annoncer

just announced (venir, to reach, as well as to come)

vient de changer

just changed (venir, to come or become or reach, is often translated to “just” in English)

Vous n’avez pas idée

You have no idea

Note: As I reviewed this list, many of the words that I did not know last month in readings, have repeated and I now know them. I review them anyway, so that I can have that spaced time repetition that works so well.

The documentary “Reinventing the Royals” , that was to examine the Prince Charles communication strategy after the death of Lady Di, was rejected after the intervention of the lawyers of the Royal Family.

English viewers will they one day see “Reinventing the Royals” , a documentary of the BBC ? Not sure! This report, which was to focus on the communication strategy of Prince Charles after the death of Princess Diana in 1997 has been postponed indefinitely. According to the magazine Radio Times , lawyers for the royal family intervened with the BBC .

The first episode of this documentary series was to be aired in England on 4 January on BBC2, but the chain has decided to postpone the program after receiving a letter from the legal representatives of Prince Charles and his wife Camilla. According to Radio Times , the BBC would also have struggled to gain access to video archives of the Royal Family. The channel said the broadcast was postponed to later in the course of 2015 “until a number of issues, including the use of video archives, is resolved.”

The documentary thus analyzed the communication of Prince Charles to the death of Princess Diana in 1997, and in particular its public relations team, led by his former spin doctor Mark Bolland. The former did everything to boost the popularity of the Prince, and also guarantee him the approval of the English about his relationship with Camilla.

Note: I was reading this on my Kindle App for LeMonde (which I recommend), and some of the comments were giving me a difficult time in my effort to translate. LeMonde allows you to read 15 articles per month for free, which is perfect.

Can topless be independent of eroticism? Is there any difference between the bare torso of a woman and a man? This is what is upheld by the old Femen activist Eloise Bouton, 31, sentenced Wednesday, December 17 by the Paris court to one month suspended prison sentence for sexual exhibitionism. “To say he has there a difference reflects an outdated view in a society that must be equal,” says Bouton.

She had on 20 December 2013, showed her bare breasts in the Church of the Madeleine in Paris. The picture caused an uproar: only wearing black pants and a blue veil, she had planted herself, arms crossed in front of the altar, a bloody beef liver in each hand, to evoke “the aborted fetus of Christ”. This action was intended to denounce the anti-abortion position of the Catholic Church. The court sentenced Ms. Bouton to pay 2,000 euros in damages and 1,500 in court costs to the priest of the Madeleine.

The latter retaliated by launching a petition in order to “clarify” the offense of sexual exhibition. Released on December 22 in Libération, the text, relayed by the Femen association, is online at Avaaz.org. The signatories believe that the offense of sexual exhibition is too vague, discriminatory, and does not place men and women on an equal footing. This offense is made when sex is shown, made an obscene gesture, or a sexual part of the body exhibited. The debate is about the last point: are breasts a sexual part of the body? “Obviously yes, asserted Mr. Laurent Delvolvé at the hearing in October, representing the parish priest of the Madeleine. When it is touched against the will of the woman, it is a sexual assault. »

On the contrary, Ms. Bouton and for the Femen, nudity is a political weapon – even if activists can not ignore that it is the provocative aspect of their bare breasts that earned them a frequent media following. The last conviction for indecent exposure in France dates back to 1965. A girl was convicted of indecency for playing topless table tennis on the Croisette in Cannes. A distant activity of feminist activism .

“France is the first and only country in the world that condemns Femen for indecent exposure,” adds the Femen movement in a letter addressed to the Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira. The future of the movement is at stake: if the conviction is upheld, all the actions of Femen might be also. The elected EELV Karima Delli and Francine Bavay, National Secretary of the Left Party Martine Billard, the researcher Christine Delphy, the comedians Didier Porte and Oceane Rose Marie, feminist activists and associations have signed the petition. Ms. Bouton has appealed her conviction.

Interesting words and phrases:
curé – priest
Ms. Bouton – Miss Button
être dénués – to be lacking, stripped of, independent of
délit – offense
flou – fuzzy, vague, blurred, faint
A l’évidence – obviously
est palpé contre – is palpated against (this one gave me problems, because to palpate is a term used in physical examinations, like when a doctor presses against organs from outside the skin. I’m not sure the French are using it this way, and what the equivalent is in English, so I’m guessing “felt/touched”)
un suivi – monitoring, following
assidu – frequent, persevering, diligent
remonte (a) – dates (back)
la garde des sceaux – the guard of the seals, Minister of Justice
éloignée – remote, distant, far away
les élus – the elected

Note: I personally think men should also be ticketed for exposing their nipples, solving the problem by making the offense equal among both genders. My former overweight neighbor never wore a shirt when he was working outside, and “ses seins avaient des cheveux”. Mon dieu.

The French seem to be becoming more conservative than the “pilgrims” in America, as they like to say.

Notes:This is how I approach a podcast. First, I listen to it on the website and watch the highlighting go through the text, and I try to anticipate the the sounds of the words. Over the last few months, I have become better at seeing a “liason” coming up and correctly anticipating the sound. I stop the highlight and MP3 when the reader says a word differently than I expected or a phrase is particularly unique. You stop the MP3 by simply tapping the arrow on the MP3 line. I then repeat that section a few times and say it along with the reader. You can do this by tapping the arrow again, and then clicking the phrase on the text. The MP3 will magically return to the phrase as often as you tap it. It’s a wonderful feature, and part of the reason I like the Migros Podcasts so much. This feature began with the #112 post of L’avis de Marie.

I will then play the entire MP3 a second time, and attempt to read the text outloud with her. These are not beginner phrases, and she is not reading particularly slow, so this is very challenging for me. In the magic formula of the six or ten things you need for becoming fluent in a language, the people who have done so, all state that they had a mentor who would guide them through proper speech throughout the day (husband/wife, child, guide, co-worker, etc.). I will forever be missing this ingredient, and I know that, so I rely on Marie’s podcasts, Lingvist, Google Translate, Anki deck cards with text-to-speech, movies with subtitles in French, and songs. I avoid listening to “street” language pronunciation found on many podcasts, afraid I will take on the habit of using “filler” sounds and words like “donc, ansi, aussi, dooooo…” or grunts and pause noises. There are many English speakers who do this, and it drives me nuts. “Ahhh, Like, You Know, Ummm”.

I then translate the text (below), and read it outloud with the reader, in this case Marie, again. The phrases from the text that I find conversationally of value, I will copy and paste into my phrases spreadsheet, along with the translation. I will also download the MP3, and copy what I have below, into a Word document filled with “L’avis de Marie” podcast transcripts and translations. The reason I take this final step, is to allow me to “word/phrase” search at a later time. If Marie said that phrase, and I wish to hear it, I can follow the link in the Word document, find the phrase on the Migros Podcast, click the phrase, and Marie will say it to me as often as I click until I have it correct on my tongue. If the blog ever goes away (and they do), I have a copy of the MP3. That is a lot of focused work done on each podcast, and I do improve each time. Let’s get started with #131…

Hello everyone! Welcome to my podcast “The Opinion of Marie“. It is November 21 and I we will talk about Old French. A bit of history to explain how we arrived at modern French. Then, I will present a new member of the family, Zezette [1]whose adoption was not made ​​without causing jealousy from the other animals in the household.

There was Julius Caesar and Gaul was invaded [2]. Latin, the language of the Romans, had been imposed by the Roman conquest. But be careful when I say Latin, one must imagine that there was, at that time, two kinds of Latin. The Latin of the educated, the learned grammarians, the ones who had the rules, and the most popular latin of ordinary people who were not educated, the vulgar Latin.

When the Romans entered Gaul, they brought with them these different Latins. Oral Latin of soldiers, settlers and written Latin, of the administration and the school. Latin became the language of communication. This does not happen overnight , you can imagine. Think of the comic Asterix and Obelix and his village of indomitable [3] Gauls. For a long time the Gauls kept their Celtic language, Gaelic. Yet “Over time, everything goes in will ” and gradually Latin won over Gaul in the third century and Gaelic disappears.

The current French barely kept a dozen words. The current French has not been influenced by the speaking of Germanic peoples who arrived in Gaul from the fourth century. It was the Romans who took care of the administration and the school. Latin therefore continues to spread.

In the sixth century most schools disappeared. Since there is more common teaching, the Latin learned disappears and becomes a spoken Latin. The variations [4], verb forms, word order, pronunciation, all this is changing. It is also that we pass two language levels – Latin scholar and the street, two distinct languages. ​​North of the Loire, they spoke the language of oil and south of the Loire, the language of Oc.“Oc” comes from the Latin “hoc” and “oc ” meant “yes” even in places we do not pronounce the “c”. ” Yes“, is said like “o“. These languages, oc or o, is Occitan, the one that speaks today in the regions of Languedoc.

In the north of France “yes” is “oïl“. Finally at that time the pronunciation, you can imagine, had nothing to do with that of today. At this “purpose” of the south, sometimes pronounced “o” there is an “it” added to strengthen the sound. Like the English to this day, when they say: “Yes, I am“, this is “yes-it” that matches “Yes it is“. We did not say “oy” but “where he”. And even this “o” was rather like an “or“. Thus we come to say “or is it“. The “he” has disappeared, as the “c” had disappeared in the langue of Oc to become an “or-i,” and finally the “yes” that we know today.

In short, north of the Loire, speaking a new language, Roman, the “lingua romana” which will be formalized in 813 by the Council of Tours. Simply put, this council of Tours will enable Charlemagne to impose a single religion and a common language. And two, because his empire corresponded to today’s France and Germany. This council will recognize two major language families, that of the Roman world, of the Latin tradition from which the French and the Germanic worlds would become modern German.

For the masses it is understood by all, that they will no longer speak in Latin, but “rusticam Romanam linguam“, the Rustic Romance language and then the Teutonic language (German) and it was made ​​compulsory in school and will also be disseminated, this Romance language, whose Oaths of Strasbourg, written in 842, was the first text written in that language.

Then there is a sound transformation story that leads through French and modern French. The vowels, and consonants are deleted [5] or reenforced [6]. Finally, you can imagine the occupation of my winter evenings. Those who have followed me will remember I resumed my studies. This year, I have the Evolution of Phonetics course, such as how to understand how “Videre” became “veoir ” and finally “See“! I think this time, I will have to work regularly and get started today!

Jealousy is not just a human reaction … Oh no ! In our animal friends, this is also a default, from time to time, it governs their attitude. One evening, my friend comes home with a tiny gray thing. But what is it ? It’s a kitten found at the intersection of a road outside a village, a place where pedestrians are not uncommon. My friend passed there and the kitten went to him.

It was not a wild kitten. That one would have hidden and fled [7] the contact of men. And that’s not what happened here. I of course I was seduced straight away. You can imagine ! Watch a kitten, it’s so cute, and he was really a baby. And her baby abandoned filled me with more tenderness. My tomcats [8] by contrast, did not share my feelings.

Both were surprised by a meow [9 ] and rushed to see the intruder.[10] She had laid down, as if the kitten thought he recognized them as members of his family, because she rushed toward them. Ah, but you should have seen them! I wonder who had the greatest fear of the other. The two tomcats spat [11], and one even gave it a swipe, not an affectionate one. The kitten turned into shaggy fur ball [12], stood up on his feet and made ​​the round back. And the two large ones who were 10 times her size, hid under the chairs and watched her growling [13]! What a funny way to welcome our guest.

And besides, is it a female or a male? Thanks to the Internet, one could focus on its anatomy and compare them with the photos found on the net and deduce that it was a small female kitten [14]. It was weighed: 0.450 grams. Also thanks to the Internet we were able to deduct [15] that it must be 5-6 weeks old. She was weaned [16] because it ate and drank alone. And it was clean. When she had eaten, she meows, I show her the litter box, and she pees. Oh that’s lovely!

We were with my friend talking about her future, and I see her move alone in the box [17]. 5 weeks and clean on the first night! And well my two jealous tomcats can’t say that! And as if to prove that she was quite well-behaved, here she was alone back in the small crate that had conveyed her, asleep.

What made this little thing so well behaved? My friend reasons [18], tells me that I since I already had two cats that cohabitation would be difficult, that I will sterilize it, and it will cost money. He proposes to bring it to the SPA [19] in which he assures me that it will be quickly adopted. Sleep on it [20], a decision for the next day. The next day, 20141121 F Zezettehere she waits patiently in his car and purring when she sees me! A little cat love!

If one wanted to drop the cat off at the SPCA, he should go! Too late, at this time the SPA was closed. It does not matter! There are boxes at the entrance where you can put found animals! – “Put that bit in a box ! To spend an entire weekend alone in a small box? Oh never! It’s a baby, and besides it is constipated [21]!” It was decided that the kitten would stay the weekend and we would decide on Monday. The weekend brings advice!

She was so small, so cute … a real baby! The cats were not as excited. Oh no, but what a circus! You should have seen them, my two jealous ones. They sulked. They only came at night to eat, did not allow caressing and grumbled [22] when I took them in my arms. Oh no, they almost made ​​me feel guilty. And the weekend has passed. Monday has arrived. The kitten was still constipated. Tuesday? It still is, it can not drop it. Wednesday? Nobody had time to pass by the SPA. And Thursday? I do not know. Friday I had given her a small name. Saturday a girlfriend wanted to take it.

I hesitated. I give or I keep? My cats were upset? Let them learn a little love! This is an abandoned kitten[23]. They have to learn to share! And it’s so cute when it’s small. Yes after? Three cats? And food for three cats, and the anxiety of knowing they are near a road, and live mice gifts in the apartment … In short, I decided to keep it.

And then the time had passed. Yesterday all of the cats ate in the same bowl[24]. Zezette had found two big brothers. Finally, jealousy, aggression, in men as in animals come from fear, ignorance [25] of the other. Learning to know it’s better to live together.

That’s all for today. Remember, you can listen to all the podcasts from APP PodClub. Attention to find the application, be sure to write “c” club capitalized. Finally, I also wanted to thank a listener who was very attentive to my podcasts. She was cycling and passing a certain house, she concluded, mainly because of my goats, that it was my home!

She left me a note in the mailbox with a Bärli Appenzeller-Biber, a cupcake. I really thank her because it was my breakfast of the day ! But you can imagine my surprise and emotion. Finally I want to thank you all for your loyalty and patience. That was my fifteen minutes of emotion !

[1] Zezette is the name given to the kitten. I had thought to call Sidonie, but eventually it will Zezette better!
[2] invade : in a leading country
[3] irreducible : you can not dominate
[4] declination : bending changes of a name according to its kind, its number, its case
[5] deleted : here we hear more
[6] strengthened : here we will hear more
[7] escape : the opposite of going to
[8] the cat , the male cat, boy!
[9] the meow : a cat meowing, a dog barking, mewing is the sound that makes the cat
[10] l (e) intruders : that s’ is introduced into a group without having been invited
[11] spit : here, when the cat is aggressive, he shows his teeth and spits it projects saliva
[12] hirsute : When the cat’s hair stand on her body when it is faced with a threat, it seems bigger than usual because the hair stands and back becomes round
[13] growl : grrrr
[14] the kitty : the cat is a cat mix, female, a Trefoil
[15] deduced : Finally, here find the answer to our question
[16] weaned : here, the kitten did not need to drink milk from his mother, he could eat solid
[17] the body : the litter, cat litter
[18] argue someone : to reason with someone, bring arguments to restore common sense to someone
[19] SPA : The Animal Protection Society
[20] “the Sleep on it ” : the night gives time for reflection
[21] constipated : my kitten could not make her stool, her poo
[22] grumble : to show his displeasure
[23] abandoned : here the kitten had been left on a road, its owners have abandoned
[24] the bowl : where I put food cats
[25] ignorance : when one does not know

I talked a little about placing oneself in an OLS in a Duolingo post, so I’m going to expand upon the idea here. I learned about OLS from a book called “Double Your Brain Power” by Jean Marie Stine. I’ve owned the book, now for the fourth time, because every time I discuss OLS with someone, and loan them the book, they never give it back. In the book, placing oneself in OLS is listed as a procedure on page 48, called Brain Power Doubler #4. There are a total of 65 Brain Power Doublers found in the book’s two hundred pages, but this particular one has always worked well for me.

1. Find a quiet place, and sit comfortably, spine erect.
2. Put your right hand just above the navel and your left hand just below your rig cage. Then relax your abdominal muscles.
3. Take an easy, natural breath. Perform this a few times until you fell your breathing is easy and controlled.
4. Begin to inhale slowly through your nose to a four-count. Hold your breath on the fourth count, for a four-count.
5. Exhale for a four-count.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for 5-7 more times, and visualize tension leaving your body. You are not trying to over-oxygenate yourself, merely allowing your body and mind to relax and lower your state to an “Alpha State”.

The brain has various cycles-per-second, and some are better than others for various tasks.

1-3 CPS is known as Delta Waves and are best for deep dreamless sleep

4-7 CPS are Theta Waves and work best for intense emotion or concentration

8-12 CPS are Alpha Waves, the state we are trying to induce, works best for meditation and relaxation.

18-40 CPS are Beta Waves which exist in conscious awareness and dreams.

Stine had reviewed the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his fellow researchers, for this particular Brain Doubler. To learn more about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his concepts of “flow”, go here:

In every given moment, there is a great deal of information made available to each individual. Psychologists have found that one’s mind can attend to only a certain amount of information at a time. According to Csikszentmihalyi’s 1956 study, that number is about 126 bits of information per second. That may seem like a large number (and a lot of information), but simple daily tasks take quite a lot of information. Just having a conversation takes about 40 bits of information per second; that’s 1/3 of one’s capacity.[6] That is why when having a conversation one cannot focus as much attention on other things.

What I found most interesting in 1997, when I bought the book, is how much is really known about our brain limitations and strengths. It’s been known since 1956 that our brains are not limitless computers that can function on several tasks equally, at once. Modern marketing wants you to believe that your new handheld, smartphone, or tech product enables your mind’s naturally limitless multi-tasking. It does not. When you multi-task, you do more things….worse.

To better understand the brain’s “executive mental control”–or how it establishes priorities between tasks and allocates resources to them–researchers Joshua Rubinstein, PhD, of the Federal Aviation Administration, and David Meyer, PhD, and Jeffrey Evans, PhD, of the University of Michigan, conducted four experiments that measured the amount of time lost when young adults repeatedly switched between two tasks.

The tasks, such as solving math problems or classifying geometric objects, were either familiar or unfamiliar and simple or complex. For all types of tasks, participants lost time when they switched back and forth. Moreover, the time lost increased with the complexity and the unfamiliarity of the tasks.

Drawing from their research and previous studies, Rubinstein, Meyer and Evans propose a new model for executive mental control in which the brain must make two separate preparatory decisions to switch tasks. The first, called goal shifting, involves choosing to switch to a new task. The second, rule activation, requires the brain to turn off the cognitive rules of the old task and turn on the cognitive rules of the new task.

For example, a student who has completed her math homework and is ready to begin her English homework must first decide that she is done with math and ready to begin English (goal shifting) and then turn off the rules of addition and multiplication and activate the rules for reading a story (rule activation).

Accessing the rules for the new task and activating them, the researchers say, can take several tenths of a second–a significant amount of time for some tasks. For example, a mere half-second lost to task switching can be disastrous for a driver using a cell phone while maneuvering on a busy freeway, says Meyer. Those lost seconds can also build up for air traffic controllers, pilots and office workers surfing the Web while writing a report.

The trick to learning a language, which requires several sections of your brain at the same time, is to have a quiet place, where your mental state is relaxed, your materials at hand and ready for processing (write the words out, say them over and over, feel the way they sound, use a mnemonic device where applicable, stay positive in your thoughts…etc.)

Stine took aspects of Csikszentmihalyi’s work and combined them with many other similar studies, in order to present his 65 “Brain Doublers”. You can find the book on Amazon for under $5, and unfortunately it is not in Kindle form. It may be worth considering some of the techniques while working with and learning languages. And no, you can’t borrow my copy.

Now that you’ve learned about the ability of your mind to multi-task and focus, start your learning session with a positive statement about what you are going to accomplish during your focused study time. As with anything, if you don’t believe that you can learn a language, it won’t. Why? Because there is a core belief that is firmly placed in the way, and you simply cannot allow this idea to work because it would displace a belief that is very important to you. The result is that your mind will not allow you to succeed in contradicting a belief, in this case, learning a lanaguage.